Worktop replacement in Wandsworth Common

Yes. Wandsworth Common is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW18, SW11, SW12. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Two carries in one day doubles what the distance costs. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

A basement is often reached by its own door under the front steps, and that door is smaller than anything else on the route. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. The old top hid it; the new one will not. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Strip out first, then measure what is actually there.

The measurement that decides everything is the diagonal between the underside of the flight above and the outer edge of the turn below it. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. A stone top coming out whole needs the same crew as one going in. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. A second kitchen or a kitchenette in an annexe is a small job with the same fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines as a large one. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Repairable in place beats replaced whole. Where an annexe has been built or converted, its floor and its walls are newer than the main house and behave differently under the same run. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A deposit deduction rarely covers a new top.

Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The shape is measured again, not copied off the old top. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The old carcasses are rarely level and never were. Have a plumber booked to disconnect the sink, tap and waste first thing and reconnect after we have gone, and clear the hallway and stairs completely so we can carry slabs through the house. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Programme work takes the flats in sequence.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. There is no leaning a piece against a wall halfway up, so any flight longer than a dozen treads is planned around a rest point on a landing. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. Timing the two carries is most of the planning.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Georgian houses put the kitchen in a basement or a rear closet wing, and the stairs down to it are the tightest part of the whole route. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Same units, straighter line, better surface.

The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. There is nothing to pay before the template visit. Original quarry tile is often still down under two or three later floor coverings, which is why the finished floor height is rarely what anyone expects. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A sound carcass takes stone; a soft one gets replaced first.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing.